Surviving
by Goddess Of Heather
Summary: Chance meetings between a new cop and an old soul. Warnings: Allusions to rape and child abuse, not explicit


Title: Surviving

Summary: Chance meetings between a new cop and an old soul.

Rating: R

Warnings: Allusions to rape and child abuse, not explict

Notes: Pre-slash Pre-series Thanks to spacemonkey22 for the beta!

The first time that Mac Taylor met Danny Messer it was cold enough to be snowing. There wasn't much of the precipitation and what did manage to make it through the smog-filled sky just accumulated in sad little clumps of dirty ice. Officer Mac Taylor was paying his dues, as a decorated Marine everyone knew that he wouldn't be a beat cop long, not like his temporary partner Ross, who had been trolling his territory for twenty years. He respected Ross, but he could also tell that Ross was losing touch with the job, maybe Ross had once been young and idealistic aiming to change the city, but Mac could see the hard edge to man now, brittle with the losses of battle. No, Mac was paying his dues, but soon he'd be out of the beat cop's car and solving crimes. Even though he'd seen war he hadn't lost that shiny hope for change. It is, perhaps, this very idealism that carried him through the marines that had him still out there and thinking about changing the world.

It was twilight on Staten Island. A strange in-between time where sun wasn't quite quit and the street lights weren't quite on and the shadows came alive. Who knows, if Mac hadn't been there with his still new idealism sparking a bit of reciprocal feeling in Ross, then perhaps Ross would have never pulled over and flashed his lights at the tangle of shadows in the park.

Hopping out Mac roared, "Police!" at the mob of shadows that could have been anywhere from 3 to 7 people circled in on something, or someone. Running full tilt it wasn't until Mac started to get close enough to see some faces that they started to disband and melt into the shadows. Mac could see a prone figure on the ground, and was momentarily torn with pursing at least one of the perps or checking on their victim. A low moan decided it for him and he turned to the figure on the ground, who was already picking himself up.

Mac watched as the young man, hardly more than sixteen he'd say, pulled up his pants and pulled his clothes into some semblance of order. "Let me call an ambulance. Get you checked out." The young man rapped an arm tight across his ribs bent down and picked a ripped jacket off the ground, icy with mud and snow Mac wasn't sure that it'd be any help to the teen.

Straitening his glasses and tossing the ruined jacket aside, the teen turned to Mac and produced a dry brittle laugh, "Man I don't need no 'bus. Ain't that bad."

Mac stared into the oldest blue eyes he'd seen since his sergeant retired. "Well what about your attackers? Surely you saw them and could make a report, if we did a" Mac stumbled over the word for a moment unused to it, "a rape kit we could arrest them."

There was that bone dry laugh, and Mac could understand how Ross became so disillusioned. "Ain't nobody gettin' arrested. Ain't that right Ross?"

Mac turned, startled. He hadn't even realized that Ross had come up behind him.

"Yeah, Messer. You're right about that one."

Mac raised a questioning eyebrow and Ross mouthed later. Mac didn't push. He was just a newbie paying his bid, and this was Ross's territory he'd wait to hear the reason's away from the victim before he got mad. Watching as Messer shivered in the night air he figured they could at least give the kid a ride home, and give him time to convince him to press charges, he obviously knew his attackers.

"C'mon kid. We'll give you a lift so you don't have to walk in the cold." Suspicious eyes weighed on him and Messer seemed to be judging the cost benefit ratio of the deal. Apparently heating won out because he nodded his accent and followed behind the two.

He slid into the back seat of the patrol car like he'd been there before, or perhaps just seen enough of them done to know the deal; either way that vacant gaze wasn't really registering what Mac was saying. Rather he was busy staring out the window, lost in his mind. Mac, seeing that he wasn't going to change the kid's mind subsided into silence. Mac didn't ask the kid's address, and the teen didn't volunteer it, but Ross seemed to know where he was going so perhaps it wasn't Messer's first time in the back of a cruiser.

They pulled up beside a beaten up house that might have been white at one point, but had faded to peeling gray. The screen door hung awkwardly and was missing the actual screen. Getting out Mac opened the door for Messer and waited patiently while he eased himself out of the car. Shuffling slowly up the walk, Mac had to try one last time. "Are you sure that you won't reconsider? We could offer you protection –"

Messer cut him off, "you can offer all ya want, I'll still be just as dead." The teen turned to face Mac, and he was again struck by the age in the eyes.

Concern washed through him, and Mac felt like raging because there wasn't anything he could do to right this wrong, not with out some help. "Are you going to be okay?"

Messer blinked slowly and shook his head. "You really don't know nuthin' do ya? I fight for every breath I take, just to have to fight for the next one. Living ain't in the cards for me, all I can do is survive."

Mac stood on the stoop feeling desolate as he watched the young man walk away, not knowing if he'd ever see him again or if he really would survive. As he waited a moment to make sure the teen wasn't going to have a change of heart and come back out he heard that distinctive nasal voice respond to someone, "nah, Da', I didn't do nuthin'. Just some nickel slick newbie cop that thinks he can change the way things are. He don't know nuthin' 'bou nuthin'."

Perhaps in a way the kid was right, Mac mused. I really don't know anything about his world. And Mac highly doubted that Messer knew anything about Mac's.

7777777777777

Looking over a stack of files for a new CSI Mac spotted a name from the past. He knew right away that was the one he was going to pick, but to be fair he went over all the files anyway. Two days later he was being transferred in.

77777777777777

"Stella I think you're going to like this one."

"Why do you say that?"

"There's a lot of spit fire in this kid." Mac nodded to the door, "there he is now."

Messer blinked a bit in shock from the doorway. "Detective Taylor?"

Mac smiled a bit, "I see you made it."

Messer answered with a grin that wasn't quite as dark as Mac remembered it and eyes that didn't seem quite so old. "Turns out that surviving ain't enough."


End file.
